Father Pitt

Category: East Liberty

  • Highland Building, East Liberty

    Highland Building, East Liberty
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    A long view down Baum Boulevard. This is the only remaining skyscraper in East Liberty. Another of about the same dimensions, designed by Frederick Osterling, used to stand next to it, but was torn down for a one-storey bank, which in turn was abandoned for years and then torn down for a six-storey apartment block with storefronts—East Liberty’s history as a neighborhood epitomized in one lot. The skyscraper apartment buildings designed by Tasso Katselas in the “urban renewal” years are also gone. This one, designed by Daniel Burnham, has Burnham’s usual elegant classicism. In some ways Burnham was one of the most adventurous architects the United States ever produced, but part of the secret to his success was his ability to use the most modern technology to please the most conservative taste.

    Comments

  • East Liberty Presbyterian Church

    East Liberty Presbyterian Church
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    Seen from the intersection of Baum Boulevard and Roup Avenue.

    Comments

  • Baywood Street, East Liberty

    Baywood Street

    Baywood Street is a typical street of upper-middle-class foursquares in East Liberty, mostly well preserved. Several have been turned into duplexes, but without much damage to the outlines of the house, as in the example below—where you should pay particular attention to the exceptionally fine round oriel on the second floor (and ignore the slightly mutilated dormer). The houses on the northeast side of the 5500 block are all the same dimensions and the same basic design, but with the fronts varied enough to make a pleasing diversity; they seem to have been built all at once at some time between 1903 and 1910, all designed with the same pencil.

    5547 Baywood Street
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

  • Castle Stanton, East Liberty

    Castle Stanton, front elevation

    Even though it has lost some decorative details over the years, Castle Stanton still drops jaws of passers-by who find themselves in unfamiliar territory here on the border of East Liberty and Highland Park. It looks like a 1920s Hollywood set: we expect Douglas Fairbanks dressed as Robin Hood to leap from an upstairs window and land on his feet after a series of spectacular acrobatics.

    Inscription: Castle Stanton

    This advertisement from the Pittsburgh Press, September 21, 1930, shows us some of the pointy bits that have since been removed.

    Castle Stanton

    This Hollywood front hides an unexpected secret, which will be revealed if we walk around to the side of the building.

    Castle Stanton
    Side of Castle Stanton

    Now we see the outlines of an older Queen Anne mansion, converted to an apartment house by the addition of a Hollywood-fantasy front facing Stanton Avenue.

    Balcony and half-timbering
    Front of the castle
    Front door
    Entrance and porch
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • Alpha Terrace, East Liberty

    Inscription: “Alpha Terrace”
    Alpha Terrace

    Alpha Terrace, a set of unusually fine Victorian rowhouses designed by James T. Steen1 in an eclectic Romanesque with bits of Second Empire and Gothic thrown in, is a historic district of its own. The houses are on both sides of Beatty Street in East Liberty. The row on the northwest side of the street went up in about 1885.

    Alpha Terrace
    Alpha Terrace

    The houses on the southeast side of the street are a few years newer, probably from about 1894, and they incorporate more of the Queen Anne style, with shingles and ornate woodwork.

    Oriels
    Woodwork
    Front doors
    Woodwork

    The rest of our pictures are from the sunny side of the street, for very practical photographic reasons. We’ll return when the light is better for the houses on the southeast side.

    Alpha Terrace Historic District
    Alpha Terrace
    Turret with witch’s cap
    Alpha Terrace

    Separate ownership is not always kind to terraces like this, but the aluminum siding on the roof is about the worst alteration Alpha Terrace has suffered.

    Alpha Terrace
    Alpha Terrace
    Alpha Terrace
    Alpha Terrace
    Dormers
    House in Alpha Terrace
    House in Alpha Terrace
    Turret
    Witch’s cap
    Witch’s cap
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
    1. Old Pa Pitt is nearly certain of this attribution. The Wikipedia article, possibly following the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, attributes the design to Murphy & Hamilton, but Father Pitt is fairly sure that Murphy & Hamilton were contractors, not architects; they probably built the terraces. Alpha Terrace is attributed to Steen in a Historic Resource Survey Form for another of his buildings that was demolished anyway (PDF). The style of Alpha Terrace is very similar to the style of Steen’s downtown YMCA (demolished long ago), which, though it was on a much grander scale, used the same prickly witch’s caps and squarish dormers; it was pictured in the American Architect and Building News for February 10, 1883.
      ↩︎

  • Highland Building, East Liberty

    Highland Building
    Samsung Galaxy A15 5G. This picture is more than 13 megabytes if you enlarge it; be careful on a metered connection.

    Designed by Daniel Burnham, this is the only skyscraper left in East Liberty; another one, designed by Frederick Osterling, was demolished decades ago when the neighborhood’s fortunes were sinking. Now the neighborhood is once again bustling, and the Highland Building, after years of abandonment, is beautifully restored.

  • An Odd Corner in East Liberty

    Wallace Building

    Highland Avenue crosses Centre Avenue in East Liberty at an odd angle, creating an opportunity for two typically Pittsburghish odd-shaped buildings. First, the Wallace Building, shoved into a sharp corner and coming to a point at the intersection. The building was designed by George S. Orth in 1896.1

    Composite picture of the Wallace Building

    Old Pa Pitt hopes his readers will forgive a slightly imperfect composite of three photographs.

    Stevenson Building
    Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

    On the opposite side of Centre Avenue, the Stevenson Building fills in an oblique angle. Its prominent corner entrance makes the most of its location.

    The original building was designed by William Ross Proctor and built in 1896. In 1927, the three bays at far left in the picture above were added under the supervision of O. M. Topp, who matched the style of the original so carefully that Father Pitt had not noticed the seam, and therefore was confused about the architects in an earlier version of this article.2

    1. Source: Pittsburg Post, May 22, 1896, p. 9. “D. H. Wallace yesterday broke ground at Sheridan, Center and Highland avenues for a $50,000 building. George S. Orth is the architect. The building will be three-storied, and on the first floor will be storerooms, with flats on the other floors.” ↩︎
    2. This is what old Pa Pitt wrote, which he preserves in a footnote to show how wrong he can be, which would not have happened if he had paid more attention to the stated dimensions: “There is some uncertainty about the design of this building. It is listed by the city as a building designed by William Ross Proctor and built in 1896. However, Father Pitt finds a 1927 listing in the Charette, the magazine of the Pittsburgh Architectural Club, that matches this building perfectly and assigns it to O. M. Topp: “313. Architect: O. M. Topp, Jenkins Arcade, Pittsburgh, Pa. Owner: James B. Stevenson. Title: Store and Office Building. Location: Highland and Center Avenues. Approximate size: 25×100 ft.; three stories and basement. Cubage: 100,000 cu. ft. First story: Amherst buff sandstone; second and third stories: Roman brick and terra cotta.” Nevertheless, a building of exactly these dimensions stood here long before 1927, and we have not been able to find any newspaper stories about its destruction or replacement. It is possible that Topp only supervised renovations, and the editor of the Charette misunderstood the information he was given. As of now, therefore, Father Pitt assigns the building to O. M. Topp, but with the understanding that Proctor might have been the original architect.” ↩︎

  • Highland Building in Evening Sun

    The Highland Building looms behind the tiny shops of Ellsworth Avenue.

  • The Looming Tower of East Liberty Presbyterian Church

    Tower of East Liberty Presbyterian Church

    The tower of East Liberty Presbyterian dominates the neighborhood in a way few buildings do in any urban setting.

  • Stevenson Building, East Liberty

    Stevenson building, East Liberty

    Update: More recent research finds that the architect O. M. Topp was hired for a building at this site in 1927, but Father Pitt does not yet know whether it was a complete replacement of the Proctor building or merely some renovations. The article as originally written follows.

    This classical building was designed (in 1896) by architect William Ross Proctor to preside over this corner as if it owned both streets. By placing the entrance at the corner, Mr. Proctor refuses to decide whether the building is on Centre or Highland. “Both,” says that entrance.

    Look up as you pass to appreciate the elaborate detail of the cornice.

    Cornice moldings